‘Making new friends attracts fortune hunters,’ Alexi suggested, casting her eyes around the room. Sterile it might be, but she had to be thinking that any female clapping eyes on the outside, on the neighbourhood generally, would know it had cost big bucks.
‘Exactly.’ Walker seemed relieved that she understood. ‘One hears such terrible things nowadays, doesn’t one?’
‘Women are becoming predatory,’ Tyler said for him, earning a scowl from Alexi. ‘Present company excepted,’ he added quickly, trying not to smirk.
‘I know I’m not much to look at, or especially interesting, so when attractive women throw themselves at me, I’m not stupid enough to think it’s my irresistible charm that draws them in.’
Tyler felt sorry for the guy, but was glad he understood the score. Appearances mattered at any age. Unjust, but that was the way the world worked.
‘So you joined a dating agency where the clientele have interests in common?’ Alexi suggested gently.
‘Quite. I like the turf, you see, and was also attracted to Natalie the moment I saw her picture. She’s elegant, educated, interesting and very easy to talk to.’
You have no idea! ‘So I understand,’ Tyler said aloud. ‘How often did you date?’
‘Three times.’ His expression was self-effacing. ‘We got along really well but, to be honest, I was surprised when she agreed to see me a second time, much less a third.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Alexi asked.
‘Have you met her?’
Tyler and Alexi both shook their heads.
‘Ladies who look like Natalie don’t choose men like me. I might have a few bob, but she doesn’t know that. We chatted by email for a while before we dated, talked about our likes, our interests, but all she knows is that I retired early from the Civil Service. She doesn’t know where I live, so she can’t know about the house, or that I have no mortgage on it.’
‘No, she couldn’t have known that,’ Alexi said.
Tyler knew that wasn’t true, and that Alexi would be equally aware of it. If Natalie knew Walker’s full name, finding his address would be child’s play. Perhaps she really had meant to work a number on him. It was obvious that he was already smitten, so the hard graft had been put in. ‘Anyway, we met twice more. I planned to contact her and ask her over here next week. It’s time I was completely honest with her about my circumstances. I mean,’ he added, sounding as though he was trying to convince himself, ‘if she liked me before, all this can’t hurt.’ He waved his arms vaguely around. ‘Although what she’ll make of the garden, goodness only knows. I’ve been meaning to get someone in, landscapers or something, but I haven’t got around to doing it. Not much point while I’m alone. But Natalie loves gardens and says she can make absolutely anything grow.’
‘That’s true,’ Alexi replied. ‘I’ve seen her garden. It’s beautiful, but I’m like you, Mr Walker. I don’t know a dandelion from a daffodil.’
‘I’m glad I’m not the only one, and please call me Darren.’
‘Did she mention any friends or relations to you?’ Tyler asked. ‘Anyone she was close to whom she might drop everything to run off and help if they were in trouble?’
He shook his head slowly, as though dredging his memory for clues. ‘No, she told me that she’s divorced and has no contact with her ex. Her parents are dead and she has no siblings. I thought she was alone, like me, although someone who looks like her need never be lonely.’
‘So you can’t think of anything that would have made her take off?’
Walker answered Tyler’s question with one of his own. ‘Can’t you put a trace on her car, or something?’
‘It’s not like on the telly. Unless the car has a tracking device, it would be next to impossible. Besides,’ Tyler added softly, ‘her car is still in her garage.’
Walker paled. ‘Oh my God! This doesn’t sound good.’
‘It’s certainly odd, but—’
‘Can I ask how you knew Natalie and I dated?’
‘We found your name on a piece of paper beside her phone,’ Tyler replied.
‘Oh, right.’ That appeared to satisfy him. ‘What’s being done to try and find her, apart from the two of you, I mean?’
‘Her disappearance was reported by friends to the police,’ Alexi said.
‘I expect they’ll come to see me as well.’
‘Unfortunately, they aren’t doing much to try and find her, because—’
‘Because she’s an adult, there’s no obvious signs of an abduction, presumably, and no body.’ He set his lips in a tight line. ‘I do watch TV.’
‘Well yes, which is where we come in,’ Tyler explained. ‘The dating agency is between a rock and a hard place. They want to keep their client base confidential, but they don’t want to hamper efforts to find Natalie.’
‘That’s perfectly understandable. I imagine you’ll be talking to all the men she met through the agency.’
‘Yes, although you’re the only one she saw more than once.’
‘Oh, am I really? ‘Walker seemed pathetically glad to hear it. ‘Well then, you must let me know if there’s anything I can do to help find her. It would be such a shame if anything’s happened to her. It’s always the nice people, isn’t it?’
‘Quite.’ Tyler paused, legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. ‘Did she happen to mention anything about the work she did before she moved to Lambourn?’
‘No, she just said that she worked in public relations and travelled a lot.’
Well, Tyler thought, that’s one way to describe what she did. ‘Not to worry,’ he said aloud. ‘It was a long shot.’
Tyler stood and Alexi followed his example. It took a moment before Walker also found his feet and Tyler could see he was genuinely distressed about Natalie’s situation. They thanked him for his time, promised to let him know if they found her, and a short time later they were back in Alexi’s car. Cosmo greeted them with one of his penetrating, assessing looks and resumed his position around Tyler’s neck as soon as Alexi started the engine.
***
‘Your assistant,’ Alexi said as she drove them off, conscious of Walker watching from his front window.
‘People in your line of work get a bad press,’ Tyler replied, deadpan.
She shot him a sideways glance. ‘Seriously?’
‘Would I lie to you?’
Alexi harrumphed. ‘What did you make of him?’ she asked.
‘I think he couldn’t believe his luck when he linked up with Natalie and that he’s genuinely upset about her disappearance.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. He’s lonely and regrets leaving London.’ She paused. ‘Let that be a lesson to you, Alexi,’ she added sotto voce.
Tyler seemed surprised. ‘I didn’t know you had plans to leave the capital.’
‘There’s no reason why you should. Besides, I haven’t made up my mind yet. Anyway, back to Darren Walker. Natalie might have been planning to work a number of him, but I’m convinced it wasn’t the other way around.’
‘I agree with you.’
‘Okay, that leaves the other two guys whom she dated once each. What will you do about them?’
‘I’ll get Larry to check them out.’
‘Larry?’
‘He’s an ex-cop who works for the agency from time to time.’
‘Cassie won’t like that.’
‘I won’t tell her if you don’t.’ He shot her a killer grin. ‘And Larry sure as hell won’t.’
‘Old cops sticking together?’
‘Hey, not so much of the old.’
She treated him to a seraphic smile. ‘I speak as I find.’
‘Evidently.’
Tyler shifted his position. Cosmo shifted right along with him, while Tyler absently scratched his ears. Alexi shook her head, astonished at her cat’s total adoration of Tyler. She was almost jealous. It had taken weeks before he’d trusted Alexi enough even to let her touch him.
‘You two need to get a room,’ she quipped.
‘Is it my fault if your cat’s a good judge of character?’
Alexi rolled her eyes as she stopped in a queue of traffic at a red light. ‘You don’t think it’s worth paying the other two personal calls?’ she asked.
‘Nope. Time’s of the essence, so we need to manage it well. I’m getting increasingly convinced that Natalie’s disappearance has something to do with her previous occupation. That’s where we need to concentrate our efforts. We need to find out who Charles is, and if there is anyone else she’s been seeing regularly. A jealous ex,’ he said, fixing Alexi with a probing glance, ‘or someone at the agency where she worked who feels they’re being literally short-changed if she’s branched out alone and taken their punters with her.’
‘Is that likely?’
‘Damned if I know, which is why we need to find out. In the meantime, Larry can look at the other two. I trust his judgement. If he thinks there’s anything there, he’ll sniff it out, then we’ll go check on them.’
‘Fair enough.’
The light changed and shortly thereafter Alexi pulled her car into the Hopgood House car park.
‘I guess we’d better let Cheryl and Drew know what we’ve found out,’ Alexi said as she climbed from the car. ‘I wonder if she had any idea. About Natalie’s secret life, I mean.’
‘We’ll soon know,’ Tyler replied, placing his hand on the small of her back and guiding her towards the door. It was an intuitively polite gesture that she appreciated. The fact that the heat from his hand seared through her clothing, playing havoc with her equilibrium, was less welcome. ‘You go ahead. I’ll give Larry a quick call, check in with Cassie, and then join you.’
‘Fine.’
Cosmo preceded Alexi towards the kitchen. As soon as she walked through the door, Toby hurled himself at Cosmo, as though they’d been separated for days, not hours. Alexi smiled at the sight, threw her bag onto the table and looked up at…
‘Patrick?’ She stared at her ex, who’d made himself comfortable at the kitchen table, where he and Cheryl were sharing a pot of tea. Cheryl jumped up and threw Alexi an apologetic glance.
‘He just turned up,’ she whispered. ‘Said you were expecting him. What else could I do?’
Alexi patted her friend’s shoulder. ‘It’s okay.’
‘Hey.’
Patrick stood up and tried to pull Alexi into an embrace, which she evaded. His lips landed fairly harmlessly somewhere in the vicinity of her left ear. Cosmo had just noticed Patrick. His back arched, his fur stood on end and he emitted a series of angry hisses. Cheryl, who’d probably sensed the tension even without Cosmo’s reaction, looked totally bemused.
‘What are you doing here? How did you find me?’ Alexi asked.
‘I’m a reporter. It’s what I do.’
‘You’d damned well better not have traced my phone,’ she said, moving away from him with her arms folded beneath her breasts.
‘I’ll leave you two to talk,’ Cheryl said, beating a hasty retreat.
The door closed behind Cheryl, leaving Alexi trapped with her determined ex, an angry cat and whimpering dog. The only sound in the room was Cosmo’s hissing and Toby’s confused yelps. Alexi, struggling to contain her anger, had absolutely no intention of relieving the tension with small talk. He had a high opinion of himself, but surely even he didn’t expect to be greeted with open arms?
‘You haven’t answered my calls,’ he said on a note of ill-usage.
‘Any reason why I should?’ Alexi looked away from him and waved as she caught sight of Tod who happened to be crossing the garden towards the annexe.
‘Come on, Alexi, cut me some slack. I couldn’t tell you what was going on ahead of time. It would have been more than my job was worth.’
‘But not mine, apparently.’
He grasped her shoulders and turned her until she was compelled to look at him. Cosmo’s hissing got louder. ‘If there was something, anything, I could have done to keep you doing what you were doing on the paper, don’t you think I would have?’
She shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’
His sigh was deep and heartfelt. ‘I love you, and want to spend the rest of my life with you. I thought you felt the same way about me.’
‘I thought so, too.’ She paused, looking up into his handsome face as she waited for regret to grip her and felt…nothing. It was liberating to have it confirmed that she really was over him. But it did make her wonder about her own constancy. She had really thought she was in love with him. She spent two whole days crying up a storm after she lost her job and then dumped him because she could no longer trust him. Perhaps he hadn’t been the love of her life after all. Merely a habit that wasn’t so very hard to break. ‘Once,’ she added.
‘You know how the newspaper game’s played, Alexi. It’s all about the bottom line and cutting cloth accordingly. You were too good at what you did. You’d priced yourself out of the market.’
She arched a cynical brow. ‘Nothing to do with the paper reducing its standards then?’
‘I had it all worked out. If you’d taken the position that was offered to you, I had plans to get you doing what you do best through the back door. Once management realised how badly the readers missed you, they would have had to let me.’
‘Run the equivalent of a political gossip column and lose face in the eyes of the industry, to say nothing of readers?’ She glowered at him. ‘Is that the big master plan you’ve been at pains to talk to me about?’
He shook his head. ‘You’ve changed.’
‘Getting fired does that to a girl.’
‘If you’d agreed to see me, or even taken my calls, I could have explained that you would get your job back. But you were so damned hot-headed, wouldn’t listen to what anyone told you, and insisted on being paid off. You’re angry, and you have every right to be,’ he said, his voice softening. ‘Now it will be harder for me to get you reinstated, but I can make it happen.’
‘How do you plan to do that?’
Alexi expected more prevarication, empty promises. ‘The Rachman feature.’
Her head shot up. That wasn’t what she’d expected at all. Following the Morecombe Bay cockling disaster there had been an outcry about the exploitation of illegal immigrants forced to live in primitive conditions while worked, sometimes literally, to death. The apathetic public had been shocked into taking an interest in the problem. No one knew quite what to do about it, but everyone agreed someone had to be held to account.
Before she got fired, Alexi had been delving into a similar scandal in London, where illegal Indians were housed like sardines in garden sheds, lacking even the most basic facilities, and charged a small fortune for the privilege—by rich Indian landlords already in the country legally. She’d given her project the code name Rachman after the notorious Notting Hill landlord who had taken exploitation of tenants to new levels in the fifties and sixties. Alexi’s story was potential dynamite, but everyone involved was too scared to talk on the record.
Alexi told herself Patrick was employing a few underhand tactics of his own to tempt her back into the fold and refused to show too much interest.
‘What about it?’ she asked, hating herself for asking. Once a reporter…
‘Someone’s come forward, who’s willing to talk.’
‘Who? One of the people I’d been trying to cultivate? Why did they come to you?’
‘Write that story and you can name your salary, as well as your position.’ He briefly removed his hands from her shoulders and spread them wide. ‘Hell, you could probably take my job, to say nothing of all the awards you’d win.’
‘Perhaps I’ve had enough of all the cut and thrust.’
Patrick laughed. ‘You thrive on it.’
‘I did once.’
‘I called by your flat. Are you really letting it?’
‘Yep.’
‘Where will you live?’
Sh
e shrugged. ‘The world’s a big place. I can live or work just about anywhere I like. Here, for instance.’
Patrick’s mouth fell open. ‘You hate the country.’
‘Well, you said it yourself just now. I’ve changed.’
‘Cheryl said something about you looking for her missing friend.’
Alexi made a mental note to murder Cheryl later. She should know better than to mention something like that to a reporter, untrustworthy bunch that they were once they sniffed the possibility of a story!
‘Promise me you’ll think about it. The whistle-blower won’t wait forever and I can’t let the story slip through my fingers. If you don’t want it, I’ll have to give it to someone else.’
He was right and, damn it, she was salivating at the prospect of finally getting the story written. ‘Yeah, okay, I’ll give it some thought.’
His hands returned to her shoulders, his fingers digging almost painfully into them. Cosmo hissed louder. Patrick shot the cat a wary glance before dropping his hands to her waist and pulling her against him. Oh God, he had an erection! Some things never changed. ‘Don’t give up what we had together just because you’re angry.’ He whispered the words into the top her head, while the fingers of one hand worked their way up her back and beneath her hair. ‘We were so good together and I miss you so damned much it hurts. Come back to London and we’ll work this all out.’
‘I’ve said I’ll think about it. Don’t push me, Patrick.’
‘It’s this guy you’re working down here with, isn’t it?’ he said, his voice turning hard.
‘What guy?’
‘Aw, come on, Cheryl told me.’
Yep, Cheryl definitely had to die. ‘Cheryl talks too much.’
‘She cares about you.’
‘This has got nothing to do with anyone, other than me.’
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